$8 billion pending deposit, ETH circulating supply continues to tighten: Why are big investors still staking?

On February 13, 2026, the crypto market continued to bottom out amid macro panic. However, behind the price weakness, Ethereum’s network fundamentals experienced a historic transformation.

Gate行情数据显示，当前 ETH报价为$1,960. Although the price remains below the $2,000 level, the on-chain “lock-up wave” is advancing at an unprecedented speed.

According to the latest disclosure from the on-chain data aggregation platform ValidatorQueue, Ethereum’s staking rate has officially surpassed 30% of the circulating supply, setting a new all-time high since the PoS merge. More notably, over 4.1 million ETH (worth approximately $8 billion) are still in validator queue, with waiting times extending beyond 71 days.

The 30% Milestone: A Double Turning Point for Security and Liquidity

This is a highly symbolic number.

When more than one-third of ETH is locked at the consensus layer, the attack cost of the Ethereum network is driven to new heights, and economic security enters a new level. Gate Research Institute analysis indicates that a staking ratio surpassing 30% is generally regarded as a sign that a network has entered “maturity”: short-term speculative demand weakens, and long-term asset allocation begins to dominate the market.

Meanwhile, liquidity is undergoing structural shifts. As of February 13, the deposit contract address on the Beacon Chain holds over 80.8 million ETH. While some of these are long-term unclaimed rewards, this figure directly reflects that the share of ETH available for free trading on the secondary market is visibly shrinking.

$8 Billion “Congestion”: Ethereum Has Its Own Deposit Bottleneck

With staking participation surging, Ethereum validators entering the queue are experiencing severe network congestion.

Data shows that currently, to deposit 32 ETH to become a validator, users need to wait over 70 days on average. The total ETH in the queue is 4.105 million, which at a market price of $1,941.36 per ETH, amounts to assets worth $8 billion in “pending” status.

Gate analysts note that this phenomenon is similar to the “gas fee congestion” during DeFi peaks—when market expectations for certain activities reach consensus, competitive entry naturally raises the time costs and implicit barriers.

In stark contrast, the exit queue is much shorter, with only about 33,800 ETH waiting to exit, and the wait time is just 14 hours. The huge gap between entry and exit queues reveals the true sentiment of holders: almost no one is willing to actively give up their staked positions at this stage.

Supply Tightening vs. Price Weakness: What Is the Market Pricing?

This is a scenario that confuses many newcomers: with more and more ETH locked up, why is the price still falling?

Gate行情数据显示，ETH近期一直在$1,900-$2,000区间反复试探。从技术指标来看，日线RSI已跌至28.57，处于严重超卖区，4小时MACD则出现底背离信号，显示下跌动能正在衰竭。

Behind this apparent contradiction is a battle between short-term liquidity and long-term value. On the macro level, the overall crypto market in February remains in “extreme fear,” with US stocks and cryptocurrencies under pressure simultaneously, ETF funds continuing to flow out, preventing any positive news from immediately reflecting in prices. But on-chain data never lies—large institutional funds are quietly positioning during this window.

Take institutional player BitMine as an example; its official disclosed holdings have surpassed 4.2 million ETH, with 1.8 million staked. Similar whale addresses have been increasing their holdings over the past two weeks, unaffected by the price decline.

The Supply-Demand Equation Has Changed: 30% Becomes the New Normal

If ETH is viewed as an interest-bearing asset, the current staking yield of about 3% is not high. But capital continues to flow in, driven by expectations.

As the staking ratio hits 30%, the actual available circulating ETH approaches a critical threshold. Gate Research Institute notes that ETH reserves on centralized exchanges have fallen to multi-year lows, now only accounting for 12.9% of total supply. This means that when market sentiment reverses, buyers will face a shortage of available coins.

Additionally, over 4.4 million ETH are locked in Ethereum Foundation and Layer 2 bridge contracts, further removing supply from the market. Multiple lock-up mechanisms stack up, making the real circulating supply of ETH potentially much tighter than the on-paper data suggests.

$8 Billion Waiting, and Trader Sentiment on Gate

In Gate’s spot trading area, buy orders for ETH are building a defense line above $1,900. Community discussions increasingly focus on the “staking queue” as a new indicator.

In the past, traders gauged selling pressure through inflows and outflows in exchange wallets; now, the length of validator queues has become a new dimension for assessing long-term confidence. The $8 billion in funds are willing to wait over two and a half months to enter, a cost structure that short-term speculators cannot accept.

Standard Chartered’s latest report on February 12 set the short-term bottom for ETH at $1,400, while maintaining a year-end target of $4,000. This view sparked widespread discussion on Gate Square: some traders believe the market still has a “final dip,” but others think that once all 4.1 million queued ETH are deposited, it will be very hard to find cheap chips in the market.

Conclusion: A Silent Supply Revolution

Ethereum is undergoing an unprecedented restructuring of its supply side.

The 30% staking ratio, $8 billion in queued funds, and 71 days of waiting all point to a trend: ETH is transitioning from a “high liquidity asset” to a “bond-like interest-bearing asset.”

For ordinary traders on Gate, this shift means that when evaluating ETH’s value in the future, they may need to pay attention to two sets of data: one from the trading charts and another from the endless on-chain queues. When 30% becomes the new normal, the game rules in the market have quietly changed.